Waymos crash less than human drivers

Off topic, but I've always felt that the ideal way to address safety is by limiting the amount of freedom a vehicle has, i.e., force it to follow a predefined path. That is, replace road lanes with something like tram tracks. (I'm imagining vehicles being two/four person pods zipping around.)

This would vastly reduce the number of accident scenarios, be more efficient, and be much easier to automate. And would probably be good enough for 99% of use cases (i.e., work commute).

Obviously I don't seriously see anyone splurging on the infrastructure and bespoke vehicles for that. But I can dream.

> That is, replace road lanes with something like tram tracks.

My brother, you are describing a train.

> I'm imagining vehicles being two/four person pods zipping around.

Oh, never mind. Yeah, the reason that doesn't work is that if you're going to spend the money to build tram tracks or zip lines or whatever predefined path, then it is only economical to make a few set predefined paths. If you make a predefined path for every possible commute in the city, you will run out of money before getting very far. So ultimately, I would say a train is the closest thing to your ideal.